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Timex “iss 
Sinclair 


Newsletter Dedicated To All Personal Computers 


“the HACKER” is an official publication 1991 NOT TOO GOOD 


of the Timex/Sinclair User Group of 
Las Vegas-a non profit, educational FOR USER GROUPS 


organization. Subscription to the Well, just as I said. The groups 


“HACKER” is $15.00 per year (12 sie 
issues) and aak DE ING to around the nation are not sticking 


TSUG of LV. Please remit to: together as far as supporting the 
Raiph Hammer(treasurer) Sinclair family of computers. The 

A 2105 Oakwood Ave. latest to fall-by-the-wayside is the 
Las Vegas, NV 89030 only group left in the Southern 


Califorina, the South Bay Computer 
Club Timex/Sinclair Users Group. . 


jan 20 pecs ieee pm They have decided to cease the 


SPC SIG-------..------ 3-4 pm. publication of the newsletter and 
1- the public is WELCOME meet on a bi-monthly basis and shift 

l ~ their interests to. IBM usage. 
“CONTRIBUTING STAFF: The South Bay club is not the first 
STEVE SAWCHUK---—-- EDITOR IN CHIEF nor the last to change the format of 
RALPH HAMMER ----—-- CO-EDITOR the group. The interests of the 
CHRIS FENN--------- ART DIRECTOR members change, so goes the groups. 


_DAWN SAWCHUK-----MAILING DIR. it's sad to see these things happen, 
but lets all wake up and smell the 


WHAT'S see burnt toast. 
pre Lets not see any more groups cease 
LAPTOP TAKES HONORS------- PG. 2 production of their newsletters 
TIMELY NEWS---------------- PG. 3 within the coming months and surely 
PROGRAM OF THE MONTH----- PG. 5 not let us see any more groups fall. 
THE HONEST TRUTH----------- PG. 6 If your group is deciding to fold, start 
FROM THE EDITOR------------- PG. up a SEG group (Special 


Education Groupjand help each other out 
DON'T JUST GIVE UP. ; 


mt Sierra Nevada Airways 


save $50 


ES 


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GRAND CANYON 
THE ULTIMATE TOUR EXPERIENCE 


„°° PER PERSON OFF OUR NORMAL PRICE 


cur includes pickup/dropoff at your hotel. Air tour of Grand Canyon aboard 


aircraft, land at the Grand Canyon Airport for a 3 1/2 hour land tour 


42 the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, including a.stop at one of the 


| o utiful lodges for lunch. This 6 hour tour normally departs at 10:30 am 


icuing to Las Vegas at 4:30 pm. Call us anytime 24 hours per day to 


arrange your 


seek WELL KNOWN 
: T/S USER 
PASSES, AWAY — 


Miata Wr as 


ied Bae 
SS 


The Hacker was saddened to learn 
of the passing of one of the most 
respected users in the Sinclair . 


community. On Nov. ist, Mr Warren 


Fricke passed away. Warren has 
written many programs for the 2068 
as well as the other T/S computers. 
Warren was a subscriber to the 
“HACKER” as well as many other 
publications. Warren will be missed 
by many, but his programs will live 
on forever. The Hacker staff extends 
their condolences to the Fricke 
family in their time of sorrow. - 


GRAND CANYON ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE 
136-6700 


Rey. Price $155.00 pp 


RSS SRS a RETE SS DE US SS SS SE S ER A ss SB SS SO a E 


IN EUROPE 


C2) 


Mention the “HACKER” 


No Expiration Date 


LAPTOP. 
TAKES _ g é 
TOP HONORS Deu 


-- A panel of international computer 
journalists has voted the Psion 


- MC400 laptop PC as “computer 


of the year.” The British company 
walked off with the award, 
presented by Chip magazine of West 
Germany, polling the highest score of 
any computer in the competition.. 
For the tenth year running of the 
awards, organized by Chip magazine, 
trade journalists in eight countries 
voted for their most highly rated 
computers in five separate 
categories. In use of innovative and 


ground-breaking technology. The 


MC 400 was judged to represent “the 


mont ei realisation of 


the truly portable computer 
with 60 hours life and the use 
of solid state disks for data 
storage,” according to the judges. 


TIMELY BITS OF NEWS. . 


FROM AROUND THE 


WORLD & OTHER PLACES 


NEW FOR IBM: Mouse Systems’ 
Hand-held Scanner -- Input device 
specialist Mouse Systems Corporation 
has developed a black-and white. 
hand-held scanner, packaged with 
software to give users an easy start. 
with the system. 

The PC PageBrush/32 runs under 
DOS 3.1 and needs Windows 2.1lor » 
higher, 640KB of RAM, a graphics 
card with VGA, EGA or VGA mcnitor 
and of course, a mouse. It has the 
ability to recognize up to 32 shades 
of grey, has a one-bit-per -pixel mode 
and is compatible with all major 
desktop publishing programs. 

Resolution can be set between 100 
and 400 dpi (dots per inch)-and the 
device has a scan width of 105mm. 
This allows it to operate with Prodigy 
OCR which converts text into word 
processing format and has the ability 
to merge two scans together to form 
an §-inch wide scan, La Palette is 
also bundled, a new color scanning 
and painting program for Microsoft 
Windows. 

A color version will be announced 
soon, Mouse Systems said. “We do 


not want to be seen as just a Mouse 
manufacturer,” Monica Kirkdale, 
manager of European operations for 
Mouse Systems said. “We provide a 
complete range of high quality 
alternative input devices and 
complementary software." 


NEW FOR IBM: Sony-Compatible 
Rewritable Optical Disk -- Kurary Co. 
has.introduced a 5 1/4-inch 


rewritable magneto-optical disk that 


is compatible with Sony’s line of 
rewritable optical drives. 

The disk is part of the company's 
line of “Lifetime” rewritabie rnedia, 
which the company says has 
received confirmation of its . 
compatibility. with Sony and the 
standards established by the 
American National Standards 
Institute and. the International 
Standards Organization. 

“More than 65 percent of the 
rewritable market belongs to Sony,” 
says Tom Russell, president of 
Kuraray's U.S. marketing firm. "By 
providing an alternative media 
source for the industry de facto 
standard, Kuraray ensures 
availability and competitive pricing 
for distributors and VARs.” 

“One Lifetime 5 1/4-inch optical © 
disk can store literally thousands of 
pages of information,” Russell says. 
"This high capacity, coupled with the 
ability to erase information, makes 
Kuraray rewritable media the 
optimal storage medium for 
applications such as computer-aided 
design and multimedia production, as ` 
well as document storage and 
retrieval.” 

The disks carry a retail price of 
$170. 


NEW FOR IBM: Corel Unveils - 
CorelDraw 2.0 -- Corel Systems of 
Ottawa unveiled Release 2.0 of its 
CorelDraw graphics software at the 
Canadian Computer Show here. New 
special effects and expanded font 
capabilities are among the changes to 
the software. 

Fiona Skelding, a product 
demonstrator for Corel, said the new 
release supports more than 150 
typefaces. Corel has also added the 
ability to export typefaces in a 
variety of formats, including Adobe 
Type 1. 

New special effects include 
envelope, perspective, extrude, and 
blend features. Users can create 
fish-eye lens effects, vertical arching, 
block letters, and fit text inside a 
shape. 

The new release also imports 
full-color scanned images in TIFF 
format, Skelding said. 

The suggested retail price is 
US$695 or C$835. Corel is charging 
US$99 or C$125 to upgrade from any 
previous version of CorelDraw to the 
new version. "We've justified (the 
upgrade fee) based on the number of 
new features,” said Seana White of- 
Corel at a Toronto press conference. 
The last. new version of CorelDraw 
was 1.2.1, released in May to add 
support for Microsoft Windows 3.0. 


NCR ANNOUNCES COURT VICTORY. 
OVER AT&T 

-- NCR has announced that Judge 
Frederick Smaikin, Federal District 
Court for the District of Maryland, 
has dismissed, without prejudice, an 
amended complaint in a lawsuit filed 
by AT&T against NCR and the 
Maryland attorney general. 


The complaint by AT&T sought a 
declaratory judgment that the « - 
receipt of revokable proxies by 
AT&T for purposes of a potential. 
shareholder vote would not make 
AT&T a beneficial owner of NCR 
shares represented by such proxies 
under the Maryland Business 
Combination Act. NCR said that, 
under the Maryland Business 
Combinations Act, a “beneficial 
owner” of 10 percent or more of the 
outstanding voting stock is precluded 
for at least five years from entering 
into any “business combination” with 
that corporation unless the 
company's board of directors 
approves prior to the beneficial 
owner becoming a 10 percent 
shareholder. 

NCR also announced that the court 
did not consider AT&T's request to 
enter a temporary restraining order 
which would have barred NCR from 
commencing or prosecuting any 
litigation against AT&T in connection 
with a tender offer in any other 
court. 

AT&T spokesperson John Shako 
stated that the Maryland decision 
will not deter AT&T in any way from 
its attempt to acquire NCR. Skalko 
said: “We'll just proceed to to the 
next step”. ~ 


THATS THE THIRD TIME 
YOU'VE PUNCHED THE 
WRONG BUTTON 


"MONTH 


This month we are printing a small 
program that was sent to us by S 
everyones favorite programmer, 
none other than Joan Kealy herself. 

The program is a 2K for the 2068. 

In her letter she states,” This one 

may look flippant but it's serious, I í 
got it stright from my CPA”. Also are 
some of the screen responses thatthe 
program figures out. Thanks Joan, at. 
this time of the year, a good chuckle. . 

is needed, 


WHAT HORE VICES & LUXURIES WILL 
COST... IN. 1991 


$2.28 MORE EVERY WEEK 
AND $14,56 HORE FOR 


$8.64 HORE EVERY WR. 
AND $33.25 HORE FOR YR. 


UP $0.72 PER HO. $6.64 PER YR. 


AND FOR THE YUPRPIES 
$299.5 LUXURY TAX 


$598 LUA TAX 
FOR A TOTAL #164: 
+ SALES TAX IN H 


AND FOR THE 


MONTHLY TH 
YEARLY $46 


THPUT UHAT YOU CAN AFFORD BEYOR 
COMPUTING 


1 PAPER 7: CLS : 
EASES based on BPR re 
ü Budget Act EFF i 

5 PRINT “UHAT HORE 
AURIES WILL COST IN : 

18 INPUT “NUMBER OF ji 
IGARETTES PER WEEK" .C: 
#.0¢: LET YsWs52: PRINT ` 

HORE EVERY WEEK’ ’" AND $” 
ORE FOR THE YEAR" 
12 TNEUT “NO. G PACKS BEER PER 
HK "iB: LET UbsBs.416: LET YRsUE 
#52: PRINT ARET = ie HORE ENE 
UK.” ” AND $”; YB; MORE FOR YR.” 
15 INPUT “WO. WINE BOTTLES PER 
MONTH "ML: LET THUs.1SsHU: LET 
YTH=124#TMH: PRINT “UP $°; THUD” 
PER HO. $; YTLIG PER YR," 

17 PRINT “AND FOR THE YVUPPIES 


16 INPUT “PR 
GUER $3880: $ 
1-300001: PRIN 
Y TAX” FOR A TAL $ 
" + BALES TAX IN HOST : 

28 INPUT “PRICE oe Lis 
JEWELRY (OVER g10e@0 ra oa 
Tes. Lx (L2-18000@) i SRINt 
LUX TAX'’" FOR A TOTAL 
Tey fio SALES TAX IN MOST 


at 


Se INPUT “PRICE 
ER $1800@000)";L3: L 
188868): PRINT “$” 
X°’"" FOR A TOTAL #& 
SALES TAX IN HOST 

#4 INPUT “PRICE 
LANE (DUER #258880: ~ 
»14{(L4-2588881: PR 
LUX TAX"? FoR 
+ SALES TRE 
PRINT “AAD 


“INPUT “NUMBER O 
ASOLINE PER UK" ,.G: | 
5: PRINT *“HONTHLY 
$i MG”? YEARLY $", 
30 PRINT * “INPUT 


AFFORD BEYONDCOMPUT 
S@: PAPER @: CLS 

9997 STOP 

9998 CLEAR : SAVE #"LUXUIS" LINE 
1 


Ho, 
Year and all the other to-do 


Ho, Ho, Happy New 
that goes with it. I hope that 
your holidays were kind to all 
of you. Even if it only comes 
once a year, it is still a good 
time to sit back and review the 


past. 
For most of us, there are a 
tew days away from the 


workplace, to spend some time 
with our families and friends. 
The kids were guessing what 
Loys that Sante would leave for 
them, and maybe even Mom 
und Dad for that matter. I still 
believe in Santa and the spirit o 
giving. To see the expressions 
of joy in faces young and old is 
neve to be completely forgotten. 
And the traditional Christmas 
Day dinner, where the food and 
time together is good. 

The New Year sprang up on 
us the following week. A time 
to look forward into 1991, and 
see what is on the road ahead. 
The world is turning at an 
exceptional pace, we never 
know what's going to happen 
from one day to the next. We 
have ‘all made some sort of 
resolution or goal for ourselves. 
How soon will they be broken 
or discarded. Most of the goals 
set are realistic, and when 
attained, we set new ones. 
Such is life. 

The year of 1990 was not 
a ! ' one for us TS'ers. A 
f: setters pic’ ~p their 


The honest 


Truth 


by Ralph Hammer 


bags and left us. A couple of 
groups were disbanded, and one 
or two even reformed wiih 
emphasis in PC-SIG. A national 
magazine dropped the TS 
computers article, but it was 
soon picked up by another. And 
last but not least, some of us 
abandoned it all-together. 

Not to worry. There are 
still quite a few of us old 
faithfuls still around. I know 
I'm not going anywhere sooi. 
As I have mentioned before, miy 
2068 is dedicated to doiny 
things that my PC can't. A 
few editors are still putting out 
real decent N/L’s. And a few 


groups are still hanging in 
there. 

There will be more 
dissappointments down the 


road, rest assured. Lets not 
make such a big deal about it... 


upcoming months. so if your 
subscription is due, renew now so 
you won't miss any issues. Until 


Well, There went another year and 
we are still hanging in. As you have 
already read, a lot of newsletters and 
clubs have gene into la-la land. Now 
with the threat of postage going up, I 
wonder if more will fall 
by-the-wayside I hpoe not. 

Now for some good news. Back by 
popular demand (mine), we will have 
the priviledge of filling the newsletter 
with the words of wisdom from John 
Sumpolec, the BBS greu of Vegas. If 
you can remember that far back, 
John wrote for the "HACKER" as 
SYSOP JOHN. well starting soon ,he 
will be filling our pages once more 
with his wisdom of the phone lines. 

Also we will have a guest writer 
(yeah!) reporting on various subjects 
within the computer world. Maybe 
we can get some more 1000, 1500 
and 2066, maybe even some 288 
material squezzed into this 
publication now and then (I hope so). 

We hope to have several program 
reviews in the up-coming issues. 
They are two of the most exciting 
programs I’ ve ever seen. One is a 
game and the other in an add-in 
program. A what-in program? If you 
don't know what an add-in is, you 
will just have to read about it in the 


WrarotGy 


RENEWAL NOTICE 


This notice is to remind the 
following people that their 
abecripHon ‘membership 

is due on the dates indicated: 


RMikami & D. Silvestri----2/1/91 | 
R. Curnutt & G Hudlow----- 3/1/91 


Without your support, We can't function. 


Please renew today. 


XXKRRARKAXARKKRKXARKKKRRN RNG MMH Kh eh Mo 
2 NEW RELEASES FROM 
##> RMG ENTERPRISES <uu 
HERE ARE 2 NEW RELEASES FROM THE 
WRITING TEAM OF JEAN AND BRANSON 
WILCOX. We hope that you wili aive, 
them a try and help support our 
2068 software producerai 


© 19898 BRANSON WILCOX 
Remember the old dica poker. game? 
Here is a great rendition of it for 
you to run on your 2068. 
Introductory priced att 
ONLY #@12.9S5 plus $2. PH 


This one is tor all of you TAROT 
card enthusiasts. I really have not 
seen a better program of its type 
for the 2066. It is fun to get 
your readings done by THE AMAZING 
CLIVE from his TAROT oarda! 
Also introductory pricad atı 
ONLY mize. QEpiua 62 PH 


RMG ENTERPRISES 
. 4419 1/2 7TH STREET 


OREGON CITY, OR 97045 
BeBe Ba Be BeBe BeBe Be Be Be he Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be 


"H ACK ED iy 


COMDER SHOW DAILY 


“Trust me on this, son. i 
|- Goldilocks is not going to be a 


peaca ii a fa LTE PAE aaa 


: “Where is the spell check when ` 
you peed iP" ci ag 


€OMMDER' SHOW DAILY — 


bo 


‘ 
t ae 
N 


“Ofcourse the instructions come 
separately. They're $400!” 


- “We used to be buried in tons of 
` unfiled paperwork. Now we're 
buried in tons of unfiled floppy 
disks." is 


8